blue skies

Blue Skies - East Preston, West Sussex

i'm just back from a fab few days at the seaside with my friend Emma and her two beautiful burp-monsters Rex and Greta.  it was a bit of a lastminutedotcom as a Emma needed a half term escape, i needed a little holiday and a friend of hers offered his beach house "Blue Skies" in East Preston (near Littlehampton) for the week.  we arrived on sunday and sadly the weather wasn't blue skies...more like grey and rainy skies...but the beach was right outside the back door and the house was an old-skool beach house gem - full of quirkiness, religious iconography (very catholic family), with a funny little dining room, cupboards and laders, bedrooms with sea views and an upstairs dormitory which reminded me of school.

dinner in the b&b style breakfast room

dormie-style...just like school!

some interesting reading in the libary

the house is looked after by the gardener, Tony (Macaroni) an ex-pat from Sicily who collected me from the station with a hug & kiss (we're not in London now!) and was so chatty we thought he'd never leave - but he told us the previous tenants had been some international visiting monks on a retreat and that we had a pretty big challenge to beat in wine-consumption as he'd never had to take so many empty bottles to the recycling!  he also informed us that all the single girls who stay don't remain so and that i should stand on the bedroom balcony and wait for passing suiters - sadly tho there were just a bunch of wet dog walkers passing by!

 room with a view

the first day we took a trip to Brighton (poor little Rex couldn't quite get his bemused brain around why we were driving 40 minutes away to a beach when there was one out the back of the house, in fact we subjected him to this confusion every day until we finally took him out and flew his new kite on wednesday) where we enjoyed a great fish & chips lunch at English's and did a bit of shopping in the lanes, ending at JB's american diner - where Rex & Great were in heaven watching Tom & Jerry cartoons.

 

on Tuesday i was awoken by the little monsters all done up in face-paint - Emma had been up for hours doing tiger faces and making cup cakes - a mother's work is never done!  Greta then had a go at doing me - tho i'm not sure whether she was going for the afghan hound or domestic violence look!

 

 hhmmmm...how do i look? one HOT MESS!

we took a drive to visit the east beach cafe at Littlehampton as i had raved about the Thomas Heatherwick design (which Tony called a rust-bucket!) but sadly it was closed.  so then we carried on toward Arundel and planned to visit the castle - but that was also closed!  in the end we walked around the lovely town and managed a couple of antique shops and picked up a few more bargains before Mr Wobbly Legs had had enough!

 Emma, Great & Rex - with Arundel Castle behind

 Greta, me and Mr Wobbly Legs!

 Emma's star purchase...a lovely chinese jewellery box

on wednesday we finally launched the kite Rex got in Brighton (on the grey-est, wettest, but windy-est day - great fun) and did a bit of beach-combing. then we had fish & chips again at Fred's in Littlehampton (an excellent recommendation from Tony Macaroni) before hitting the amusement arcade and then going home as the sea mists rolled in and i had to reluctantly head back to London on the train. 

 let's go fly a kite!

 one happy little boy!

 kite over Blue Skies...

 it had to be done

 there's a bear on the beach!

 yum yum!

 

HOT CHICKS!

the first thing i did was unpack my lovely little beach watercolour that i picked up for a fiver in Arundel and then while out yesterday i spotted a matching beachy cushion in habitat and just had to have that too - to remind me of my lovely trip. i miss all my beach buddies and hope to go again when the sun is out and the skies are properly blue!